2016

It all began cold and wintery, about like it is right now.
I wrote a letter, crumpled it in a tin can and struck a match to burn it down.
I read some old books and lived a vague little surface life.
Anxiously I paced through the crevices of my mind.
My new adventure was dawning and with no time wasted I was packed and moved to a frigid little valley.
Oh I went insane for awhile, took a mental walkabout.
It was exciting really, good for the soul to be a little strung out.
I stumbled sleeplessly through a month of my life, calving 7 to 7's-nights.
It was touch and go for awhile, then I quit the coffee and went on the fight.
One sunny day in May,
I turned my yellow horse out to a snowy pasture blanketing the mountain side.
In waving flowers, beneath a romantic blue sky I took shallow roots to reside.
And there I got ahold of some harder lessons in life.
I dragged my tired ass in and out of bed, worked, played, cried, prayed and bled.
My scattered little mind was lost and found then lost again.
I stumbled upon a couple loves to be lost and still I have no advice to lend.
I taped up rope burns on what should've been feminine hands and buried them deep in denim pockets.
I met a determined set of blue eyes and a fierce set of brown.
We were so dead set on life; there'd be no one could take us down.
Nursed my wounds, lost some weight and lost some sleep.
Learned just how much that I could take, and went rolling in the deep.
For the first time in my life I stood up for myself a time or two.
I spent more than one night staring at the stars, listening to a coyote call and looking for some sort of clue.
I found a bigger smile than I'd ever worn before.
With sore muscles, big dreams and a broke horse beneath me, I could of swore that's what I'd been born for.
Waged war against my own mind and dug a little deeper to see where my breaking point did actually lie.
I lived in a pocket of heaven that God held close in his palm.
He rocked me there as I struggled through the storm.
I rolled my bedroll just as a gypsy would instruct.
I then proceeded to pile my shit into a twenty year old truck.
And now, with a cup of coffee in my hand, I'm telling you my story, my saga of the land.
I ran, I fought, I tried.
And somehow rattling in my bones, I know I'm still chugging on the uphill slope.

Xoxo Gussie